in a new and tragic mood. His health began to fail, but he worked on. He married in 1879 the daughter of Birnie Philip, and settled at Haslemere. His later subjects are from this neighbourhood (the most famous being “The August Moon,” now in the National Gallery of British Art) or from Yorkshire. Towards the end of 1881 he went to the Riviera, returned in the spring, and died at Haslemere on the 10th of June 1882. Lawson may be said to have restored to English landscape the tradition of Gainsborough, Crome and Constable, infused with an imaginative intensity of his own. Among English landscape painters of the latter part of the 19th century his is in many respects the most interesting name.
See E. W. Gosse, Cecil Lawson, a Memoir (1883); Heseltine Owen, “In Memoriam: Cecil Gordon Lawson,” Magazine of Art (1894). (L. B.)
LAWSON, SIR JOHN (d. 1665), British sailor, was born at
Scarborough. Joining the parliamentary navy in 1642, he
accompanied Penn to the Mediterranean in 1650, where he
served for some time. In 1652 he served under Blake in the
Dutch War and was present at the first action in the Downs and
the battle of the Kentish Knock. At Portland, early in 1653,
he was vice-admiral of the red, and his ship was severely handled.
Lawson took part in the battles of June and July in the following
summer. In 1654–1655 he commanded in the North Sea and
the Channel. Appointed in January 1655–1656 as Blake’s
second-in-command, Lawson was a few weeks later summarily
dismissed from his command, probably for political reasons.
He was a Republican and Anabaptist, and therefore an enemy
to Cromwell. It is not improbable that like Penn and others
he was detected in correspondence with the exiled Charles II.,
who certainly hoped for his support. In 1657, along with
Harrison and others, he was arrested and, for a short time,
imprisoned for conspiring against Cromwell. Afterwards he
lived at Scarborough until the fall of Richard Cromwell’s government.
During the troubled months which succeeded that event
Lawson, flying his flag as admiral of the Channel fleet, played a
marked political rôle. His ships escorted Charles to England,
and he was soon afterwards knighted. Sent out in 1661 with
Montagu, earl of Sandwich, to the Mediterranean, Lawson
conducted a series of campaigns against the piratical states of
the Algerian coast. Thence summoned to a command in the
Dutch War, he was mortally wounded at Lowestoft. He died
on the 29th of June 1665.
See Charnock, Biographia navalis, i. 20; Campbell, Lives of the Admirals, ii. 251; Penn, Life of Sir William Penn; Pepys, Diary.
LAWSON, SIR WILFRID, Bart. (1829–1906), English
politician and temperance leader, son of the 1st baronet (d. 1867),
was born on the 4th of September 1829. He was always an
enthusiast in the cause of total abstinence, and in parliament,
to which he was first elected in 1859 for Carlisle, he became
its leading spokesman. In 1864 he first introduced his Permissive
Bill, giving to a two-thirds majority in any district a veto upon
the granting of licences for the sale of intoxicating liquors;
and though this principle failed to be embodied in any act, he
had the satisfaction of seeing a resolution on its lines accepted
by a majority in the House of Commons in 1880, 1881 and 1883.
He lost his seat for Carlisle in 1865, but in 1868 was again returned
as a supporter of Mr Gladstone, and was member till 1885;
though defeated for the new Cockermouth division of Cumberland
in 1885, he won that seat in 1886, and he held it till the election
of 1900, when his violent opposition to the Boer War caused his
defeat, but in 1903 he was returned for the Camborne division
of Cornwall and at the general election of 1906 was once more
elected for his old constituency in Cumberland. During all
these years he was the champion of the United Kingdom Alliance
(founded 1853), of which he became president. An extreme
Radical, he also supported disestablishment, abolition of the
House of Lords, and disarmament. Though violent in the
expression of his opinions, Sir Wilfrid Lawson remained very
popular for his own sake both in and out of the House of
Commons; he became well known for his humorous vein, his
faculty for composing topical doggerel being often exercised on
questions of the day. He died on the 1st of July 1906.
LAY, a word of several meanings. Apart from obsolete and dialectical usages, such as the East Anglian word meaning “pond,” possibly cognate with Lat. lacus, pool or lake, or its use in weaving for the batten of a loom, where it is a variant form of “lath,” the chief uses are as follows: (1) A song or, more accurately, a short poem, lyrical or narrative, which could be sung or accompanied by music; such were the romances sung by minstrels. Such an expression as the “Lay of the Nibelungen” is due to mistaken association of the word with Ger. Lied, song, which appears in Anglo-Saxon as léoð. “Lay” comes from O. Fr. lai, of which the derivation is doubtful. The New English Dictionary rejects Celtic origins sometimes put forward, such as Ir. laoidh, Welsh llais, and takes O. Mid. and High Ger. leich as the probable source. (2) “Non-clerical” or “unlearned.” In this sense “lay” comes directly from Fr. lai (laïque, the learned form nearer to the Latin, is now used) from Lat. laicus, Gr. λαϊκός, of or belonging to the people (λαός, Attic λεώς). The word is now specially applied to persons who are not in orders, and more widely to those who do not belong to other learned professions, particularly the law and medicine. The New English Dictionary quotes two examples from versions of the Bible. In the Douai version of 1 Sam. xxi. 4, Ahimelech tells David that he has “no lay bread at hand but only holy bread”; here the Authorized Version has “common bread,” the Vulgate laicos panes. In Coverdale’s version of Acts iv. 13, the high priest and his kindred marvel at Peter and John as being “unlearned and lay people”; the Authorized Version has “unlearned and ignorant men.” In a cathedral of the Church of England “lay clerks” and “lay vicars” sing such portions of the service as may be performed by laymen and clergy in minor orders. “Lay readers” are persons who are granted a commission by the bishop to perform certain religious duties in a particular parish. The commission remains in force until it is revoked by the bishop or his successors, or till there is a new incumbent in the parish, when it has to be renewed. In a religious order a “lay brother” is freed from duties at religious services performed by the other members, and from their studies, but is bound by vows of obedience and chastity and serves the order by manual labour. For “lay impropriator” see Appropriation, and for “lay rector” see Rector and Tithes; see further Laymen, House of. (3) “Lay” as a verb means “to make to lie down,” “to place upon the ground,” &c. The past tense is “laid”; it is vulgarly confused with the verb “to lie,” of which the past is “lay.” The common root of both “lie” and “lay” is represented by O. Teut. leg; cf. Dutch leggen, Ger. legen, and Eng. “ledge.”[1] (4) “Lay-figure” is the name commonly given to articulated figures of human beings or animals, made of wood, papier-maché or other materials; draped and posed, such figures serve as models for artists (see Models, Artists'). The word has no connexion with “to lay,” to place in position, but is an adaptation of the word “layman,” commonly used with this meaning in the 18th century. This was adapted from Dutch leeman (the older form is ledenman) and meant an “articulated or jointed man” from led, now lid, a joint; cf. Ger. Gliedermann.
LAYA, JEAN LOUIS (1761–1833), French dramatist, was born in Paris on the 4th of December 1761 and died in August 1833. He wrote his first comedy in collaboration with Gabriel M. J. B. Legouvé in 1785, but the piece, though accepted by the Comédie Française, was never represented. In 1789 he produced a plea for religious toleration in the form of a five-act tragedy in verse, Jean Calas; the injustice of the disgrace cast on a family by the crime of one of its members formed the theme of Les Dangers de l’opinion (1790); but it is by his Ami des lois (1793) that Laya is remembered. This energetic protest against mob-rule, with its scarcely veiled characterizations of Robespierre as Nomophage and of Marat as Duricrâne, was an act of the highest courage, for the play was produced at the Théâtre Français (temporarily Théâtre de la Nation) only
- ↑ The verb “to lie,” to speak falsely, to tell a falsehood, is in O. Eng. léogan; it appears in most Teutonic languages, e.g. Dutch lugen, Ger. lügen.
